Thoughts and commentary about the janitorial and office cleaning business.

March 2012

03/23/2012

"Your strangest cleaning job" was this morning's request from one of my favorite industry blogs. Just had to submit the following:

"Years ago, shortly after I'd started in the industry, I got a call from an apartment manager. Seems that he'd had an elderly tenant, smoking in bed, set himself afire. Tenant staggered into the living room, and expired in the middle of the living room carpet. The apartment manager, being cost conscious, replaced just the burned part of the carpet. Seems that the widow, still living in the apartment, experienced pangs of loss whenever walking through her living room, past old Harry's outline - the replaced chunk of carpet was a good match, but was cleaner than the existing. So the apartment manager wanted us to either clean the old carpet, or dirty up the new carpet, to match, and hide Harry's outline - as a benefit to the widow. Haven't worked for any apartment managers since."

03/19/2012

CBN's system and its partnership with Homeland Ssecurity through the IMAGE program is featured in a recent article on Cleanlink, also picked up by Building Service Contractors Association International's e-newsletter.

CBN and Porter Industries, up in Colorado, are the only janitorial firms in the nation enrolled in the IMAGE program, providing sophisticated training to firms' personnel departments in confirming ID and properly dealing with related documentation. Good summary, in the article, on document preperation and retention. Over and above the IMAGE program, as part of our in-house security program, we confirm applicant ID by comparing drivers license photos with the State's file of them (we require a current Arizona driver's license of all applicants), and run a Social Security number based address check, to see who-all might be using the applicant-submitted SSN. Pretty tight system, overall.

We've offered janitorial services in Phoenix since 1974; hold the BBB's A-plus rating; and have long been in the forefront of the industry in environmentally sensitive cleaning for health, safety and security. Our office cleaning program can generally improve Indoor Air Quality, in the size range of most allergens, by a factor of 50%, as reflected in our ongoing IAQ sampling. We also furnish Green Seal certified recycled restroom paper products and janitorial supplies.